Ira leaned back into the arm of the couch and sighed. After days of denial, his eyes began to drift slowly shut, just barely keeping his migraine at bay. Little paws crept up the side of the couch to join Ira in his nest of discomfort. Peter mewed upon her arrival and rubbed her forehead on Ira's bruised cheek. He smiled softly and massaged her warm ear between his fingers.

He was glad to have her so close to chase away the cold from the ice packs laid up and down his battered body. He'd dressed lightly after scraping his body free of mud in the shower. Now, he regretted it. If he had the strength to retrieve a pair of sweatpants--he would have. 

Ira shivered and pulled the soft throw blanket tighter around his shoulders. Everything hurt, most things stung, and the rest throbbed. His moon pale skin was painted blue with blossoming bruises. His limbs, cheeks, back, and stomach were laced in a menagerie of tiny slashes from grabbing branches, glancing stones, and sharp grass. His bones were intact, but heavy with exhaustion.

The hill had not been merciful to him, but he hadn't broken anything or battered his head--and the Beast had left him alive. It was a lot to be grateful for--and he would be as soon as it all stopped aching.

Cooling water dripped down the ends of his hair. Each drop landed with whisper soft thumps against the blanket pooled around his throat. The ice pressed against his exposed skin was filling him with unshakeable chill. The black-and-blue skin of his bare legs prickled. He wrapped his arms over his chest and gave into his trembling. 

His head throbbed, reminding him of the sleep he'd promised himself when he returned home. He'd meant to but now it cruelly avoided him. He was too weary, waiting for the moment the apartment door would swing open.

He relaxed into the softness of the couch, the cold of the ice, and the warmth of Peter's fur. He hovered in a nearstate of sleep and awareness, twitching with each creak and flinching with each honk from the street outside.

He didn't know how much longer he had in him until he finally faded away.

Bang.

Ira snapped upright, displacing the ice packs he'd neatly covered himself in. They rolled from the couch and landed on the carpet with a series of light thumps. His eyes darted to the front door, where Melchior was turning bright red beneath his russet tone.

"Sorry, sorry! It slipped." He'd bent to pick up the dropped duffle bag. His quiver slipped off his shoulder and arrows spilled across the vestibule. "Ah, angels."

Ira laid back on the couch, watching as Melchior fumbled to recollect his items. He smiled, hiding it behind his palms. He didn't want Melchior to think he was teasing him--but how could he not? How was a trained Deacon this clumsy? Ira winced and swallowed down his pride--what did he know of grace? He'd been so angry, he'd stepped clean off the trail and into a drop. 

Ira sighed. On that note, they seemed similarly disgruntled. Melchior's clothes were caked in mud, as if he'd also lost a fight with a hilltop.

"You have mud in your hair." Ira murmured dizzily.

"Yeah, I know." Melchior agreed. "I'm gonna get in the shower. Did you eat?"

"No." Ira answered.

Melchior nodded. He placed his quiver and bow next to the wall and stripped off his boots. "Okay, I'll make-" his glittering green eyes darted over Ira for the first time, and he froze. "What happened?"

Ira glanced at his limbs, inspecting the bumps, cuts, and scrapes. He shrugged lamely. "I tripped."

"You tripped? You're a mess." Melchior scoffed. He abandoned his sorting to cross the living room. 

"No, you're a mess. Don't get mud all over the apartment." Ira protested. He held out his palms, trying to deter Melchior from the couch, as if he was a stray in from the rain. Peter hopped off the couch and darted to the kitchen. "See, not even Peter wants your dirt on her." 

"I'll clean it up and apologize to Peter." Melchior dismissed. He pushed the coffee table aside and kneeled at the foot of the couch. "Did something happen?" 

His fingers curled at his sides. He looked akin to a shy child, who'd been told to sit on his hands so he wouldn't pick berries from his mother's prized garden. 

Ira shivered. His touch wasn't the only way he'd found to close the gap Ira carefully maintained. His keen green eyes paused over each injury on Ira's legs. His lazer focus carried scorching heat. Ira bit down the flush rising in his cheeks and quickly pulled his legs up into the warm embrace of the throw blanket. He locked his arms over his knees and scowled angrily. 

Why did he feel so embarrassed? He wasn't the self-conscious type. Melchior was suppose to be the bashful one. Ira laughed softly, remembering how bright red he'd turned when Ira had thoughtlessly left the bathroom in just a towel. Melchior's eyes fluttered upwards, meeting Ira's. He tipped his head wolfishly, silently asking what had made him laugh. 

The bubbling warmth in his chest turned acidic. Ira squeezed his eyes shut and hissed, "if you wanted to know what I get up to in a day, you shouldn't leave me alone." 

As he did most times he spoke, he regretted the words the instant he'd said them. Ira sunk his teeth into his tongue and laid his face against his knees. Melchior had left him because he always did this. He was completely unreasonable and full of venom. He was a poison that was best cut out. 

Melchior sighed. It sliced Ira deeper than the rocks and branches had. He winced and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'm sorry." Melchior said finally.

Ira flinched and glanced up over the tops of his scraped knees. "You're sorry? Why?"

"I knew you were upset, but I still pushed you away. It was selfish, but I couldn't think of another way." He inhaled through his nose and shook his head. "I bet you got all caught up in your head and stopped looking ahead."

Ira turned pink, and Melchior laughed.

Ira's heart thumped disobediently behind his bruised ribs. He squeezed his fingers down into fists, and clenched his teeth together until his jaw creaked. "No," he whispered. His throat tensed and his palms began to sweat--and each word had to be hooked and dragged up over his tongue. "It was. . . my fault." 

His stomach lurched, and his brain did back-flips inside his skull. Those words tasted sulfuric. They burned as much as they weighed. Ira thought he might choke on them. "I pushed you away first. I know I'm unreasonable. I know I blow up. I just don't know how to stop. You shouldn't have to put up with me."

"Kitten!" Melchior said quickly. He leaned forward, and then froze, lifting his dirtied hands away from the couch. "That's not it at all."

Ira groaned. He pressed his palms to his eyes to force back the tears blooming there. How pathetic--how embarrassing--completely childish. Ira Rule was not a child, he never had been. He was the Soul. He was the defendant--and he was guilty. 

"Really?" Ira scoffed. "You didn't talk to me for over a week and then split us up--and it had nothing to do with me always snapping on you?"

Put your head down, admit to your sins, beg for forgiveness--do all that and do it again tomorrow. Say you were wrong--plead on your hands and knees for all those lives you lived and for the first sin you ever committed. A survival tactic he'd relied on for all his life. He didn't know at which moment I'm sorry began to burn up his insides.

Melchior sighed. He ran his hands over his face and groaned. "Yeah."

"Okay," Ira shrugged. "Then tell me the reason."

So, he'd never say it. Even when it became the only path forward. 

"What?" Melchior paled.

"If you have another reason, tell me." He said.

Melchior blew a breath from his nose. "I. . . I can't."

Just keep digging deeper--past the earth. Make a grave as deep as Hell, and wallow where no one will dare to retrieve you.

"Great." Ira growled. "I'm really not in the mood." His bones creaked, and his joints popped, but he didn't stop. He pushed himself up from the couch, sinking his teeth into his lips to turn away the flinch edging just beneath the surface.

"Hey, wait! Will you listen please?" Melchior snatched Ira by the wrist before he could flee. Ira blinked his heavy blue eyes and turned his face away.

"Angels, what? I'm tired, and bruised, and I-"

"I like you!" Melchior breathed.

Ira froze. His cheeks flushed pink and his lips pressed together over his teeth. "W-what?" His stomach flipped, filling with moths and flies and every shade of butterfly the imagination could conjure. 

"I like-" Melchior groaned and ran his fingers through his hair. "I mean I like that you say what you mean. I like that you get so upset-"

Ira's heart turned to cement and sunk into the pit of his stomach. Oh, he thought. He scowled, shoving down his stupid fluttering insides. Why was he so disappointed? What did it matter? Melchior was only here to save his life--Ira was his unwilling executioner. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else could matter. 

Soon, it'd be over. Ira would take him back to the trail the Beast had carved, they'd reach the end--and then. Then? If it really was a path to the rift. Then, well, it would just. . . be over. Ira's throat tensed over a thick lump of. . . he didn't really know--but it stung worse than the resident rage he kept there.

"Seriously?" He scoffed.

"It's honest, Ira." Melchior's fingers squeezed into the pulse thumping just beneath Ira's wrist. "When you get so mad about all these little silly things, I know that you're telling me the truth. All my life, I've been numb. I think I chose to be--because I was so scared of what would happen if I just let myself go. If I felt anger--if I ever felt fear--I'd break apart. I'd let in all that terror flooding every single aspect of my life and became something else--something inhumane. You made me think, for the first time, that all those emotions are human, too. That even if I slipped, I'd still be me when I hit the bottom." 

He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, "I thought that I was two things--a boy and a curse--and I am, but maybe both those things are still me. I was trying so hard to just be Melchior Brisbane that I was breaking apart. The thing cutting me up--was me." 

Ira froze. His limbs stiffened into ice and he crumpled back onto the couch. "I. . . I know," he whispered, "I have all of these things inside me--and everyone wants me to be them, too. Just be the Soul--and let go of Ira Rule, but I can't. I don't want to f-" his throat tensed and his words sputtered to a halt on his tongue. He sighed and pressed forward, "I don't want to fade away." 

Melchior opened his eyes. His grip loosened on Ira's wrist. "You're not going anywhere, Kitten. I won't let you--but it's time to stop running, don't you think? I thought we could just be Ira and Melchior and mindlessly stomp towards our destiny side-by-side, but those things inside are a part of us, too. They're real, and they aren't going away." 

"So, what am I supposed to do?" Ira breathed. "I want them to go away. I want to just find a quiet place to sleep." 

Melchior sighed. His hands dropped into his lap, and a small shrug glanced off his shoulders. "A friend told me that the harder I try to push myself together, the faster I'm going to fall apart. It's struggling that makes us sink in quicksand." 

Ira rubbed at his eyes, "you have friends beside me?" He muttered lamely. 

Melchior smiled softly. "Oh, yeah. In fact, I'd say Peter's probably my best friend but you make a close second." 

Ira huffed and wiped at his nose. "Good, glad I'm second. I was about to get jealous." 

Melchior sighed. He stood slowly and dusted his hands off on his pant legs. "You didn't bandage any of your cuts. Are you trying to get an infection?"

Ira glowered down into his lap. "We don't have any."

Melchior creased up his eyebrows and tilted his head. "We have a whole box." 

Ira shook his head and frowned, "no, I don't want those. I bought them for your tattoo. I'll go to the store tomorrow." 

Melchior shook his head and ran his fingers through his hair, "Kitten, don't be stubborn over something as silly as that. If we use all of them on you, I can just wear long sleeves." He glanced over his shoulder and exhaled sharply. "Okay, stay there. I'm just going to go clean up and grab the first aid kit." 

"I'm not moving--trust me." Ira mumbled. He begrudgingly folded back into his space on the couch and pulled the blanket tighter around his shaking limbs.

Melchior sighed before slowly nodding. He stooped, collecting the ice packs Ira had accidentally knocked on the floor. He hesitated, his mouth trembled--and then tightly shut. "Okay." He murmured on his way to the kitchen to refreeze the packs.

Ira shut his eyes and listened to the sound of his light steps retreat across the small apartment. His eyelids flickered, the fridge door opened. A moment later, the bathroom door. The metal handle made a soft click as it locked. The shower handle squeaked.

These little sounds seemed so all consuming in his foggy mind. As if he could wrap himself up in all the whispers of the world and fade away.

His bruised and broken flesh began to prickle with unfeeling. As his grip on waking loosened, his pain began to subside. Until all he could feel was ice-cold numbness.

"-know who you are," the voice murmured from a place deep at the back of Ira's skull, "you're the Third Prince." 

"-careful," he snarled in return, "I don't take kindly to-" 

"-itten, wake up. I'm going to clean up your wounds, okay?" 

Ira snapped upright, starling Melchior back onto his hands. His pulse spiked in the skin of his throat. Ira's stomach spun, and his head twirled--and he pressed a palm to his lips to keep the few contents of his stomach where they belonged.

"Angels!" Melchior breathed, "are you okay? I didn't mean to startle you."

Ira gasped for breath. His arms slacked, and his hands fell into his lap. He glanced down at his empty palms, feeling as if he'd let go of something important.

He blinked the haze from his blue eyes and glanced up into Melchior's concern-etched features. Water collected in the grooves of his wavey hair. He'd changed into clean clothes, too.

A soft white T-shirt and loose gray sweatpants. Visible beneath the fabric, his keys hung from a chain around his neck. His way back home and his way forward into the cathedral.

Gifts--or reminders.

Ira glanced down at his open hands, at the fresh bandage laid over his tattoo, and at the assortment of ointments, cotton balls, and gauze at his finger tips.

"I. . . I think I was falling asleep." He whispered. He knew he must have been.

He pressed his palms to his head and shook until fizz filled up his ears. No, that couldn't have been real. It had been a hallucination, or a dream the way that others experienced them. He pressed his teeth together. 

No, that was real. It was a memory. From a life where he'd known the Third Prince, but how? That couldn't be. He'd never had any dreams like that. Unless--no. There was no way. A dream of his first life? He'd never had one before. It was the one thing the angels had never returned to him--and the one thing the Progeny wanted from him.

Everything he knew of his original sinhad been passed down to him as bedtime stories from the Cardinal

"Hey, Kitten," Melchior murmured gently. "Can I please take care of some of your cuts?" 

"Uh, sure." He mumbled dizzily.

Melchior nodded and reached for the first aid kit. He dabbed some medicine on a cotton ball and turned his attention to Ira's battered legs. Suddenly, the fog rolling around his skull cleared--and Ira withdrew. "Wait!" He said, grabbing Melchior's wrist. 

Melchior glanced back at him and tilted his head. "Sorry, it's just neosporin." 

Ira groaned. Right. When had they ever been on the same page? "That's not it." 

Melchior frowned. "Then what's wrong?" 

Ira turned pink and sunk his teeth into his bottom lip. What justification did he have for the sudden electric jolt tensing all his muscles. "I'm. . . just. . . embarrassed." 

"Oh," Melchior nodded, "don't be, everyone trips sometimes." 

Ira pressed his palms to his eyelids and groaned again. How could he be so dense? "Yeah, I know. Can't you just-" let me do it, but is that really what he wanted? Tangled up in a bitter sense of guilt--it wasn't, "-okay, just don't look." 

Melchior frowned. "Uh, how am I supposed to do that?" Ira growled with frustration and Melchior laughed. "Fine, how about this?" 

He turned away, and sat with his back pressed flat against the side of the couch. He patted his lap, and Ira begrudgingly extended his leg past the safety of his blanket. He hooked his knee over Melchior's shoulder and turned his burning face away. 

"Better?" 

"Mhm," Ira mumbled. 

He winced at the cold pressure tapped against his wounds. His gut churned, and his cheeks burned. The silence building between them was becoming agonizing. Ira thought he could hear his own heart slamming against his ribs--he was worried Melchior could hear it too. Melchior turned his head, and Ira glimpsed the side of his rose-toned cheeks. 

"You, uh," Ira cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck with trembling fingers, "you said you kept yourself numb for a long time." 

"I did," Melchior acknowledged softly.

"Against all the terror in your life." 

"Yeah," 

"What. . . what did you mean?" Ira asked. 

Melchior peeled back the paper-white bandage wrapper and pressed it over a gash stretching down the length of Ira's calf. "I didn't always know what my fate would be, but six years ago it became clear to me. I wish I could say I faced it as a soldier would--but I was scared. Angels, I still am. It's not so easy to face your own mortality." 

Ira creased up his eyebrows. He pulled apart all his moments spent with Melchior--trying to work them all back together into some stitchwork quilt. "You mean your curse?" He asked. He sighed and shook his head, "right--that's in the 'we don't talk about it' folder." 

Melchior laughed stiffly. His fingertips traced lightly over the skin of Ira's knee, sending a shudder up his leg. "I don't know about that." He sighed. "Maybe we should." 

Ira's heart plummeted into the pit of his stomach. "Oh! I didn't mean-" 

"You don't want to?" 

His words stuck to the roof of his mouth. He sighed and shook his head. "I. . . I want to." Did he? Why did he say that so easily. If Melchior ripped down the wall between them--Ira would be on full display. The trust Ira wanted, he didn't know if he had it to return. 

He squeezed his eyes shut. 

He wanted to see Melchior Brisbane. He wanted him to see Ira Rule in return. 

Melchior nodded. Pressed beneath his leg, Ira could feel his heart hammering behind his ribs. Melchior's fingers twitched and then resumed worrying over Ira's bruises. As if he was a robot stumbling over a coding error. "Then. . . yeah." He breathed. "It started with my curse, but it didn't end there." 

Ira held his breath, waiting for Melchior to continue. He bowed his head, exposing the flushed pink hue hiding in the russet skin of his neck. Ira's fingers twitched. He ignored the temptation to run his fingertips over the pulse there. 

"Okay." Ira murmured, "I'm listening." 

Melchior nodded. He exhaled. His breath tickled the skin of Ira's ankle. "The curse was just the beginning--but in a way, it was never what brought me here. The glue holding us together is the unspoken thing between us." 

Ira's breath hitched. "W-what thing between us?" He mumbled. 

"Then you don't know." Melchior murmured. "I kind of thought you didn't. Sorry, I guess that makes sense. No one is supposed to remember anymore. The Cardinal banned any mention, saying that talking about fate could change its' course. A little silly, right? If something is meant to happen, it will." 

Ira's stomach plummeted. His insides stung, and his cheeks burned iron-hot. How many times was he going to fall for that little trick. Angels, he said the cruelest things. Ira shook his head clear and pressed forward. "What don't I know?" 

"About the Forgotten Prophecy." 

Thump-thump. His heart bounced off each step on a rapid descent into the bottom of his gut. Being with Melchior always sent his heart pin-balling off his ribs, and never for the right reason.

"The Forgotten Prophecy? That sounds like the punchline to some stupid joke." Ira muttered. "Should you even be telling me all this? What if the Cardinal is right? What if knowing I'm supposed to do something will make me do the opposite?" 

Ira blinked. He pressed his knuckles to his lips, choking back his gasp. "W-wait. . . my mentor said something to me once--a long time ago. He said I was destined for something incredible--but that I had to find the way on my own." 

"Yeah," Melchior shrugged, "he probably meant the Prophecy." 

Ira slumped against the couch. "Then I don't want to know." 

Melchior laughed. "Wow, that surprised me. Really? My Kitten is doing as he's told?" 

Ira's stomach flipped over my kitten and then hardened into steel. "I'm a Deacon. No, I'm not. More than that. I'm the Soul of the Progeny. I stand to lose a lot more than just my ranking in the Progeny if I mess this up. My soul is a bargaining chip in the game." 

"Yeah, mine too," Melchior breathed, "but I don't believe what they say. I've known the Prophecy my whole life. You'd think I'd run--use my inside knowledge and my family to dodge my fate--but I'm here." 

"Why?" Ira asked. 

He just shrugged. "I tried for a long time to explain it. My brother wanted an answer--but I never had one. I just knew I had to find you. I thought, maybe, because we're so alike. Opposite sides of a coin, but stamped into the same metal. Maybe you could help me, maybe you could tell me why my curse--I don't know. It doesn't matter, because none of that was real. I don't have a reason, Kitten. I just knew I needed you. It was this feeling, always growing in the back of my mind. Sometimes it was so strong, I could hear it. These little whispers. They told me to find you." 

Ira blew a puff through his nose, "little whispers told you to be my roommate?" 

Melchior smiled. "I know it sounds silly, but it made me follow my destiny. Fate isn't so fickle that we can just ignore it. No matter how hard you struggle, a rock will always roll down a hill." 

"Yeah, ask Sis-" Ira hesitated. "Syphi--nope, not that." 

"Sisyphus." Melchior completed. 

"Right." Ira agreed. "So, you think that no matter what I know--I'll still do it." 

Melchior paused. He laughed and shrugged. "I. . . don't know. I wish there was a way around it, if we could just find a better way forward." 

"Why couldn't we?" Ira asked. "If we find the rift--we'll complete our Pilgrimage and-" he paused. Well, what came next had never been clear to him. 

Melchior seemed to sense his hesitation and regarded it with a nod of his own. "So, we find the rift. That's hardly even the surface of the wound. The Prince opening this gate is an act of war. He's letting Beasts into New York. He'll have to be stopped and we both know there's only one way to kill a Prince." 

"With a Vestige, I know, but that's not up to us, Mel! We'll do our part to find the gate. Then the Progeny will accept us as Bishops and we can fight this coming war together." Ira rambled, for some unexplainable reason all his words frosted at the tip of his tongue. He had the feeling that they belonged caged up at the back of his throat.

Melchior froze. His shoulders tensed before relaxing softy. 

"What?" Ira pressed. 

He laughed and shook his head, "Hm, Mel. That's got a neat ring to it." 

Ira flushed pink and poked Melchior in the side of his neck. He flinched and laughed, quickly grabbing Ira's wrist with his hand. 

"I didn't!" 

"You did." He squeezed Ira's wrist. His fingers moved slowly downwards, brushing across his palm. He smiled sadly and let go. "You're right. Only angels can give us Vestiges. So, don't worry, okay?" 

Ira flexed his hand. It suddenly felt too empty. He nodded stiffly. He swallowed down the tension building in the hollow of his throat. He had the nagging sense that Melchior was omitting something. Ira clicked his tongue--of course he was. Ira had asked him to. Whatever this Forgotten Prophecy was--he didn't want to know. 

The fate of his punishment could hang in the balance. It was too much to risk. 

Ira's pulse thrummed as heavily as waterfalls in his veins. "I don't know that I ever really believed in curse before," he admitted, "it's silly--I believe in demons, and angels, and blessings but curses always felt so. . . far fetched. Like New Progeny nonsense. I don't know why. I guess if someone said I was living a curse, too, I'd believe it." 

Melchior nodded, "yeah, I know. I don't really believe it myself sometimes." 

Ira paused. "What. . . what is it?" 

Melchior's muscles tensed beneath his clothes. "My curse?" 

"You don't have to if you-" 

"No, no, it's okay." He breathed slowly out and detangled himself from Ira's legs. He reached into his pocket, and withdrew a plastic bottle. Rattling around the bottom of the container were a few capsules. "These. . . help me control it." 

"Those pills?" Ira repeated numbly. He opened his palm and Melchior set the medicine in his palm. Ira carefully inspected them, frowning as he did so. "What are they?" 

"Monkshood." 

Ira's fingers twitched over the bottle. "I've heard of that--but Father Pine always called it something else." 

"Wolfsbane?" Melchior asked. Ira nodded, so he said. "Yeah, same thing." 

"So, why are you taking them? How does it help?" Ira asked. 

Melchior opened his hand and Ira passed it obediently back. "It's a powerful poison." 

"Right--so you're taking it why?" 

Melchior sighed. "Poison and medicine are very nearly the same thing. This helps me control the side effects of my curse." 

"Is it dangerous?" Ira murmured. 

Melchior stuffed his pills back into his pocket. "My pills or my curse?" 

"Uh, both?" 

Melchior frowned. He stared down at his hands, as if encased in the lines of his palms were all the right answers. "Honestly. . . yeah, it is--but don't worry, okay? I've been taking my pills the whole time. I'm in control. I won't hurt you." 

Ira's stomach tensed and rolled over on itself. An alligator death roll inside of his guts. He pressed his folded up hands against his lap. "Oh," he murmured. Those words stuck in his head, becoming metal hot and blade sharp.

I'm in control; I won't hurt you.

They sunk to the pit of his gut and turned into cement. This entire time--Melchior could have hurt him? It seemed hard to imagine.

Thump-thump-thump. 

He pressed his nails into his palms. He didn't know what to say--because he thought if he opened his mouth, he would regret it. He was angry, it blazed up suddenly in the pit of his stomach. It stung as sharply as a blow to the cheek. Melchior had lied. He'd been lying this whole time. What if he'd lost control? What if his strange mystery curse had billowed up to harm them both. 

It tasted as lemon on his tongue.

He glanced up at him, into his eerily bright eyes. He had a feeling that he'd seen eyes like those--in every single dream he'd ever had. He quickly looked away and shook the thought from his mind. No, that man had brown eyes. Plain brown eyes that seemed unnaturally dull for his features. He was sure of it. 

Unless even that was a lie. 

When would it all end? When would he be able to freely trust the person by his side? 

"I'm sorry." Melchior breathed. "I. . . I never should have hidden it." 

Ira's eyes flickered down to the bandage at Melchior's wrist--at the hidden tattoo beneath it. Melchior grew still. His limbs stiffened, and slowly, he tucked his wrist beneath his trembling fingers. 

"So, you're not done hiding yet." Ira muttered. 

Melchior glanced away. 

Ira placed his forehead against his opened palms. "Okay." He grit between his teeth. "We should get some rest. I have a lead we can follow tomorrow." 

"A lead?" Melchior frowned. 

Ira ground his teeth together and nodded stiffly. "Yeah, let's finish this. I'm getting kind of curious about this fate everyone believes I'm meant for." He pushed himself up, brushing past Melchior's kneeling form. "I'm taking the bed."